President Bush on My Mind

I just finished helping my husband lay tile in our bedroom. Actually, he lays the tile and grouts it, and I come behind him with a wet sponge and wipe off the excess grout. As I worked away, getting more dirty and more smelly by the minute, my thoughts turned to President Bush.
I think of him often: when I am cooking dinner or doing dishes, when I am pulling weeds in my yard, or carrying in my groceries. My teenage son thinks of him when he mows the yard and washes the car. I didn't ask my husband if he was thinking of President Bush when he put a new roof on our old house.

Why do I think of President Bush? Because according to him, I am supposed to have illegal aliens doing all of these jobs for me. When did he tell me that? Every time he goes to the microphone to talk about the "guest worker" program. I have lost track of how many times he has asked the question, "If we deport these 12 million people (more like 20 million, but okay), who will mow our lawns or clean our homes and watch our children?".

The fact that he thinks I have someone doing all of these things for me shows me just how out of touch he is with my life. He keeps saying that it is time we bring the illegal aliens out of the shadows and get them paying their fair share of taxes. I guess he forgot about the days when he was in their tax bracket (ha ha). My niece is in that tax bracket; she's in that "early married" stage of life where you are just getting started. She is married, with one child, and she and her husband have those "starter" jobs while she tries to work her way through school. Thanks to the child tax credit, the child care credit, and a little something called the "earned income credit" for lower-wage earners, her family had $500 in taxes withheld during the year and at tax time received a refund check from the IRS for $3,700. How many of the people President Bush is talking about will be in the same situation? I guess that must have slipped his mind.

Whether it is $400 haircuts (that's almost a new sofa at my house), a prominant senator who is rumored to be building a gigantic vaction home on some island, or a President who cannot imagine life in America without a throng of people around to do what we just consider "daily chores", the rhetoric and lifestyles surrounding today's politicians shows me that they have no concept of the reality of my life at all. And probably no concern for it, either.